Harry Potter and the Quest for Happiness
by MjolnerTheAuthor
Summary: Let's imagine for a moment that Voldemort didn't exist... What would be different in Harry's life? Would he be a different person? Will he be able to find love without the worry of getting people hurt? Read the story to find out! Better description before first chapter. This is my first story so constructive criticism is welcomed.
1. Chapter 1

This Story will be a Harry Potter (which I do not own, that honor belongs to J.K. Rowling) remake of my own design. The infamous encounter with Voldemort never happened, seeing as in my version Voldemort doesn't exist (bet you hate me for that one, don't you), and James and Lily are still living. This will also be a love story with pairings of Harry and Hermione, Ron and Luna, and possibly Ginny and Draco, since they will both be evil bigots in this story. Having said that Ginny will be evil does not mean that all of the Weasley family is. Ron will be the extremely faithful best friend and the rest of the family will be like Harry's extended family, with the exception of Ginny of course (you'll see why later). Aside from these changes, I will stay pretty true to the original story line, with the occasional original character thrown in. So, without further ramblings, let the story BEGIN!

…

(First Day of School)

"Mum, have you seen my shoes?" I yelled down the stairs while sprinting around my room and throwing things doing my last minute packing. "Yes Harry dear, I have them right here!" she yelled back, a bit of a wavering laughter showing through, presumably at my over-eagerness. I turned and bolted out of my door and raced down the stairs, jumping down the last five and nearly taking out my Dad. "Whoa there, take it easy. I know you're exited, but you can slow down and catch your breath Harry!" he said, chuckling and setting my broom, which he had just gotten out of the backyard, on top of my trunk. "Sorry Dad, I just can't believe I'm actually going to Hogwarts!" I said, plopping down on the bottom step and hurriedly lacing up my shoes.

I was finally going to school, I couldn't believe it! Of course, Mum and Dad had already taught me loads of stuff, and I already could play Quidditch and use wand less magic, but I was still super excited. Plus, I would get to make new friends besides my cousin Dudley (yes, Dudley is good in this story) and maybe see that nice girl I met in Diagon Alley the other day. Hermione, I think….

(If you haven't guessed already, Harry will still be famous even without being the 'Chosen One' because of being a young prodigy of magic along with Hermione, as well as a Quidditch prodigy)

"All ready now son?" my Dad asked, picking up my trunk and moving toward the door. "Yep, let's GO!" I whooped, literally jumping with joy. My Mum chuckled at me and gave me a gentle nudge toward the door. We all piled into our Muggle car and headed off to King's Cross Station

.

…

"Hey, Harry! Wait up!" I turned around to figure out who was yelling at me to see Hermione running down the platform. "Hey Hermione, how are you? Excited?" I asked, stopping to let her catch up and fall into step beside me. We didn't notice, but our parents had started walking together as well, drawn to friendship by Hermione and me.

"Oh yes! Definitely! I can't wait to get there! I wonder what it's going to look like. Mum and Dad say it's a castle but I need to see it for myself." She said, smiling as widely as I had been all morning- well, week actually. (Yes, Hermione's parents are magic in this story as well.) I nodded, seeing as I had the exact same thought as her.

Twenty minutes later, we had our faces hung out of the window of our compartment, waving at our parents as the train began to roll. Once we were out of sight range, we closed the window and sat down beside each other and began talking about what we thought school was going to be like. We talked like that for what felt like hours, eventually slipping into telling each other about ourselves. Turns out that we were natural friends, and pretty soon we knew enough about each other to know for sure that we would be best friends just because of the things we had in common. Then, with a rather loud and irritating knock, our door slid open and a gangly red-headed boy and a short blond girl step into the compartment.

The girl talked first, blushing before she did so because of the peeved look Hermione shot her. "Sorry for the _rude_ interruption," she emphasized the word 'rude' and elbowed the boy in the side, "but there are no other compartments open. We had been sitting in the hall talking but then the snack cart lady made us go somewhere else." She said, giving a small, nervous smile and blushing. The boy rubbed the back of his neck in an embarrassed way and nodded in agreement. I gave them a sympathetic look and Hermione softened as well. I smiled and gestured to the seats opposite of us. "Well come on in then!" "You should've said something before! We would've let you sit here!" Hermione said, smiling along with me now.

They thanked us and sat down after the boy and I had put their luggage up onto the rack. "So, what're your names?" Hermione asked, aiming her question toward the girl since she was obviously the speaker of the two. "Oh, my name is Luna, Luna Lovegood." the girl replied, reaching for a handshake from the two of us. "And I'm Ron Weasley." the boy said, copying Luna's actions and shaking our hands. "Nice to meet you both. I'm Hermione Granger and this is Harry Potter." Hermione answered for us both. I shot her a small smile at her antics and then returned my attention back to our new friends.

We started into another bout of conversation and only stopped talking once before we made it to Hogwarts, and that was just to change into our robes. We were all in a trance as we stepped through the door as if it were a portal to a new world- which it kind of was…

"Firs Years! Firs Years 'is way!" The gruff yell came from further down the platform, and I immediately recognized it. Apparently Hermione did as well, because she grabbed my arm and whispered, "Let's go see Hagrid," in my ear. We both squeezed our way through the crowd- Ron, Luna, and our other new friend Neville close behind- and made our way to the huge half-giant. We must've really scared him when we hit him with hugs, because he jumped and even stumbled a little.

"Well 'ello you two. Who are these three?" Hagrid laughed, gesturing toward the others as we stepped back from the hug. We introduced them and then waited as Hagrid rounded up the rest of the first year students before following him to the opening of a little path. We walked on for about a minute before the path opened up and a huge lake jumped out to meet us, with Hogwarts twinkling in the background as if waving and saying hello to all of us.

Hagrid told us all about the lake- which we learned had all sorts of magical creatures living deep in the black waters it was named for- as he led us to the small fleet of little boats that we were going to ride across the lake in. Hermione was so excited that she held a death grip on my arm- she embarrassedly apologized for it later- and was whispering ooh's and aah's as we climbed into a boat and started off across the lake.

We didn't say a word past the middle-point of the lake because we were all too busy marveling at the huge, stony giant that was Hogwarts. There were so many towers and spires that I could only count about forty before I lost my spot and gave up. As we neared the school, the mix of nerves and excitement was so strong that most of us were nearly to the point shaking. We reached the opposite side of the lake and I was in a bit of a daze as we all filed into the front doors after trekking across the beautiful emerald grounds that had been freshly tended to.

As we all lined up outside of the Great Hall that my parents had told me about, Hermione was spouting off information to the group that she had learned from her school books, which she had already read at least twice. After Professor McGonagall came and told us what we were to do after entering the hall, the doors opened and we were greeted by the entire student body and the beautiful night sky peeking through the enchanted ceiling- which Hermione had explained to us. We all gathered in front of the stool in which we would be sorted on and waited as McGonagall and Dumbledore gave their respective beginning-of-year speeches.

"Now, let's begin the sorting ceremony. When I call your name, come forward and sit on the stool. Abbot, Hannah…" McGonagall called and the read-head girl went to be sorted. She was placed in Hufflepuff, and McGonagall continued down the list.

(I'm going to skip forward a bit so as not to bog down the storyline with the Sorting Ceremony. Oh, and also in my story, Luna will be a Gryffindor as well)

…

"Well, here it is boys and girls, the Gryffindor Common Room." Said our prefect, who happened to be Ron's older brother Percy, as we all piled through the portrait hole. Mum and Dad had told me about it, but it was still something to be able to finally see it with my own eyes. We were all given a tour of our rooms and then we were given the rest of the night until curfew to hang out.

"I can't until we start classes tomorrow!" Hermione squealed from beside me on the couch. I chuckled and shook my head. "Only you would be so excited about actually doing school-work." I teased, lightly poking her in the side. Ron, Luna, and Neville, who were sitting in armchairs around the coffee table, laughed as Hermione blushed. I grinned as well and bumped her with my shoulder, which brought her to laughter as well. "Oh, whatever! You know that you are excited too!" she laughed, elbowing me. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. I had to admit, we haven't been friends for a really long time, but she already knew me very well. I may have said this before, but I'm going to say it again anyway, I can already tell that Hermione is definitely going to be my best friend.


	2. Chapter 2

Please, please review! I need you guys to tell me how to make these things better, so please review. Also, I'm writing this kinda fast so please excuse my errors. As well as giving me pointers, tell me rather you want me to add more relationship stuff or take some out. I'm going to attempt to update every day or two, or at least that's the plan. Anyway, here's chapter two.

Again, I do not own Harry Potter, that honor belongs to J.K. Rowling.

…

(Three Months After Arriving to Hogwarts)

"Oh come _on_ Harry, it isn't that difficult!" Hermione scolded, jabbing her finger toward my Potions paper much like a drill instructor would point at an obstacle course. "I know that! I just really hate Snape's class!" I whined, dropping my quill and pouting at her. She huffed and eased a little, though I could tell she was still going to make me finish my paper tonight.

We were currently sitting in the Common Room working on our homework, on a Saturday. And, it wasn't even due for another three days anyway! " _Harrrryyyy!_ Don't be so difficult! Just finish the last half page and then you'll be done. Come on, please?" She pouted, reversing my tactics on me. I grumbled and picked up the accursed quill and dipped it into the ink. She grinned in victory and returned to giving me pointers on my paper. After about five minutes of still not having any idea what to write, I groaned and slammed my head down onto the table.

"Harry!" Hermione said, huffing angrily at me. "Sit up and finish! If you're really wanting to do something else just concentrate on this. You'll finish in no time." She said, pulling on my shoulder. I grunted and let her pull me up, turning to her as I did. When I was all the way up, she coughed, a bit of a strange cough really, and covered her mouth with her hand. "You okay Hermione?" I asked, thinking she may be getting sick. She nodded jerkily and clamped her other hand on top of her mouth when a noise, not unlike a laugh, slipped from her. "What?" I asked, curious why she was acting that way. That was apparently all that it took to start her laughing as she immediately began to cackle like a five-year-old watching cartoons. "Your- your fore- fore- forehead!" Squeaked out, barely managing to speak for lack of oxygen from her laughing. I lifted a hand to my forehead to find that it was wet. I then looked down at my paper to see what little work I had done smudged into one big blob.

I laughed in a sarcastic manner and rubbed my forehead clean. "Yeah, real funny Mi." I said, crumpling up the parchment and throwing it into to fire, intending to start on a new piece. At that point, Hermione was laughing so hard that she had collapsed onto my shoulder, clutching at my arm so that she didn't fall off of the couch. I just tried to ignore her and when back to the intellectual torture that Snape had cleverly disguised as an essay over potion ingredients.

Forty-five minutes later, I had finished. After a few minutes, Hermione had finally laughed so much that her stomach hurt, forcing her to stop. Now she was only chuckling occasionally as she read over my shoulder. "There, finished! Now can I go?" I asked, rolling up the parchment and gathering my books. "Yes, you can go now. What are you so eager to do anyway?" Hermione questioned, packing up her things as well. "I'm going to go down to the quidditch pitch and fly." I haphazardly jumbled all of my supplies into my bag and stood up to go. "Wait Harry. How do you plan on doing that? First years aren't allowed to fly until after our class next week. And even then we have to have supervision." She said, standing and grabbing my arm to make me stop. "Actually, that's only if you don't own you own broom. Plus, I will have supervision!" I grinned, turning to face her. She gave me a confused look and told me to explain with a facial expression. "Well you're coming too, right? I figured you would be my adult supervision!" I teased, smiling at her. She blushed and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and started toward the portrait hole.

" _Harrryyy!_ Be careful!" Hermione yelled from somewhere below me, I think. I was in the middle of doing a flip after taking a big dive so I didn't really catch what she was saying, well, screaming that is. I pulled out of the maneuver and flew over to where she was in the empty stands. "Dowha?" I said, grinning at her peeved glare. "I said be careful doofus! You could kill yourself doing stunts like those." She warned me with a glare and a stern finger. "Nah, I know what I'm doing!" I said, rolling upside down mid-sentence just to scare her. "Don't do that Harry! You're going to give me a heart attack!" She tried to talk over my laughter, but ended up just laughing herself.

"Come on 'Mione! Ride with me." I said, holding a hand out to her. "Oh, uh, well, you see… I, uh, well, I can't…" She stuttered, fumbling nervously with her hands. "Oh yeah, you're afraid of heights, are you 'Mione?" I asked, turning serious. She nodded a little and blushed. I hopped down to where she was sitting and took the spot beside her. "Well, if you don't step out of your comfort zone now, you'll never be able to." I said, gesturing toward the broom with a nod. She shook her head vehemently and looked down at the ground. "Oh come on Mione! It'll be fun!" I prodded, nudging her with my elbow. She shook her head again without looking up and I sighed.

"Mione! Come on, just once? You can trust me, I would never let you fall!" I put on my best puppy dog face and threw an arm over her shoulders, until finally, thank goodness, I got a response out of her. "Ok… but only for a second Harry…" she said, looking up and giving me a nervous, shaky smile. I smiled wide enough for the both of us and jumped onto my broom. I gestured for her to get on and a look of doubt crossed her face again. I sighed and pulled her beside the broom. "Don't you trust me?" I asked, looking into her eyes. She nodded her head in a bout of confidence and climbed onto the broom in front of me. I wrapped an arm around her to keep her in place and slowly began to ease the broom upward.

"Harry, wait, I changed my mind!" she had one hand gripped around the handle of the broom, and one cutting off the circulation in my left arm. "Hey, it's alright Mione… I got you." "Just go really slow… And don't you dare try anything fancy!" she said, shooting me a quick warning glance over her shoulder. I squeezed her arm to reassure her and then nudged the broom a little to the left as we continued to climb a little. After we had hit a good height, I leveled off the broom and looked at Hermione to see that her eyes were shut tight. "Mione, open your eyes. You'll want to see this." I whispered in her ear, stopping the broom and hovering in place.

She slowly opened one eye, and then she was hooked. Her one eye shot open as wide as it could go and the other followed suit. "Oh Harry, it's beautiful!" I had flown us out of the pitch so that we had a view of most of the grounds, that we had both grown to love, and the lake. "I know. Why do you think I wanted you to come with me?" I asked, squeezing her a bit. She smiled and leaned back into me, visibly relaxing as she took in the beautiful scenery.

"I understand why you love to fly now Harry. This is truly amazing." "Yeah, it feels-" "Free." She finished for me, and I nodded. After she had relaxed, Hermione let me speed up and fly around the castle. We were floating lazily around the grounds and having a nice conversation, attempting to learn even more about each other than we already did while happily laughing when we saw something funny happening down on the grounds below. I looked closer to see that it was Ron and Luna, chasing each other. I chuckled and Hermione made some sort of girly, aww noise, and we watched them until they were out of eyesight. We continued to make small talk until we stopped to watch the sun set over the lake after touching back down.

"That was a wonderful evening Harry." Hermione said as we walked back across the grounds from the lake. "I thought so too. So can we go flying together more often? It's great on my own but it's even better when you've got your best friend with you." I said, causing Hermione to blush a little. "Yes Harry, of course. Thanks for helping me get over my fear of heights too." She laughed, smiling at me. I smiled and admired the way that the dwindling light made her look so much prettier than she normally was. Wait, did I just call my best friend pretty? No, no way. There's no way that I have a crush on Mione! We have to good a friendship to ruin it now…

HERMIONE'S POV (Sunset) AN- *I skipped over some dialog before so I'm gonna add it in here in her pov*

"Harry, the sun is beginning to set. We should probably go back down to the ground now." I said, not taking my eyes off of the beautiful scenery. "Ok. Let's go down to the lake and watch the sunset before we go back to the castle." He replied, turning the broom sharply and starting into a dive. "Harry, I said no fancy stuff! I'm not over it yet!" I yelled, replacing my death grips again. He laughed and pulled steeper, whispering, "Don't worry Mione, I got you," in my ear.

"Oh, I'm gonna kill him!" I thought to myself. I was going to tell him that I was going to kill him, but I was too busy screaming to say anything. He laughed behind me and pulled me a little tighter to him as he dipped the front of the broom even lower. As we neared the ground, I began to notice that it wasn't too scary. Actually, I began to like it. I felt like a preying falcon, swooping down in a great arc and soaring through the sky. I stopped screaming, and even began to smile before Harry pulled out of the dive when we were close to the ground.

I jumped off of the broom and turned around to see Harry smirking at me. "I thought you said that you didn't like to fly Mione!" he grinned, getting off the broom and walking toward the water's edge. I blushed and punched him hard before falling into step beside him. "I didn't before you pulled that little stunt. But I have to admit, that was amazing. I felt like I was… well…" "Free." He finished for me, and I smiled at him. "Yes."

Just then, the sun began to set on the other side of the lake. The dying light painted the lake in a peaceful array of orange and pink, and it was made even more beautiful when the birds took off from the trees around the lake and made shadows dance across the sandy bank. "Wow…" I mumbled, glued to the picture in front of me. "Yeah…" Harry replied, slowly sitting down. I sat down beside him and we sat in silence until the glowing orb of the sun dropped below the surface of the water.

"That was a wonderful evening Harry." I said as we walked back to the castle. "I thought so too. So can we fly together more often? It's great on my own but it's even better when you've got your best friend with you." He said, causing me to- unwillingly, I may add- blush a little. "Yes Harry, of course. Thanks for helping me get over my fear of heights too." I laughed and smiled at him. He smiled back, an adorable smile that made his cute face even more cute. Wait, did I just call my best friend cute… No, no way I did, no way at all. I mean, we are best friends, I cannot be thinking about having feelings for him. Besides, I don't want to ruin the friendship that we already have…

"Mione, heellloooo, Mione. Anybody home?" I snapped out of my ponderings to see a hand waving in front of my face. Harry was looking at me with a worried expression, and I gave him a sheepish smile. "Sorry Harry, I just got off to thinking…" I said, hoping he would brush it off and not ask what I was really thinking about, since there was no way I could lie, especially to him. "Oh of course you were, you don't ever stop thinking!" He kidded, bumping my shoulder, smiling at me now. I smiled back, though mine was a bit more mischievous. I had an idea!

"Hey Harry?" "Yeah Mione?" "Last one to the castle is a blast ended skrewt!" (I don't remember what they say in the books) I took off, laughing as I ran toward the doors. I heard Harry say something before he took off after me. Amazingly, though I think it was cause he was holding back, I beat Harry to the doors. "Geez Hermione, you're faster than I thought you were." He puffed, stumbling through the doors behind me. He gave me a crooked smile, which confirmed my earlier suspicions. I chuckled slightly and put my hands on my hips, shooting him a playful glare.

"C'mon, we're going to miss dinner if we don't hurry up. I could eat about as much as Ron right now!" I laughed, turning and walking into the castle. This caused Harry to give me a funny look that said, 'yeah, sure Mione', and bust out into laughter. I realized then how truly out of character I had sounded and started laughing with him as we passed through the doors. It took us a minute to calm down, so we stopped outside the Great Hall so as not to create a scene. Once he had calmed down, Harry finally gave his reply to my statement. "You go ahead, I'm going to run up to the common room and put my broom up, then I'll join you." He said, turning toward the staircase with a few lingering chuckles. "Ok. Sure you don't want me to walk with you?" I shot him a smile, which was soon ruined by a little giggle. He smiled back and shook his head. "Nah, you're hungry. I'll only be gone a minute anyway." He said, nodding toward the doors to the Great Hall as a suggestion for me to go. I turned and headed into the hall, making my way to the Gryffindor table. I sat down beside Ron, Luna, and Neville- with whom Harry and I had also become great friends- with my stomach grumbling loudly, and a few lingering giggles quietly bubbling out of me.

"Where in the world have you been? And where's Harry? And why in the world do you keep giggling like that?" Ron said, whilst spewing food from the corners of his mouth. Luna slapped his arm, muttering something like 'Manners, Ronald!' to him, and he dropped his head for a second with a bit of a bashful look on his face and a blush. I smiled at the way that the two of them were so cute together before answering the questions that he had fired at me. "Harry and I were out on the grounds, he was teaching me to fly." I said, getting a surprised look from the others, being as they knew of my fear of heights from our broom intro a few weeks ago (an introduction so we wouldn't be completely helpless at our flying class on Tuesday). I just shrugged at them, almost blushing a little at the knowing look that Luna shot me. "Well, that still doesn't explain where Harry is now." Neville said, inadvertently helping me out of an embarrassing spot. "He didn't fall off, did he…" Ron said, feigning a worried voice. I huffed at him and the whole group when to laughing. "Ron! Don't be ridiculous! Just now he's gone up to the tower to put his broom away." I explained, once I could hear myself over the laughter that is. "And as for the laughing-" "I told her a funny joke." Harry finished as he sat beside me, causing me to nearly jump out of my seat.

"Harry! Don't do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" I said, smacking his chest. "Ow! Ok, ok, sheesh Mione!" He said, not managing to hide his smirk. I glared in a playful way and he poked me in the side. And of course, I couldn't help but laugh.

"So, what're we all talking about?" Harry asked, directing his question toward the group. They all took a moment to answer because they were all shooting each other glances (which harry and I didn't catch) about our 'love-struck' (as they would later characterize it) behavior. "Oh, uh, we were wondering where you and Hermione had been." Neville answered, having been the first one to snap back to attention. "I explained to them that you were giving me a flying lesson." I said, Harry nodding in approval. "So I didn't miss much then! Anyway, what have you guys been up to while we were flying?" He loaded his plate up with food as he asked the question, looking to Ron for an answer. "Luna and I were… uh… doing homework." He answered, immediately dropping his head. I chuckled with Harry and Neville, this time being able to shoot my own knowing look at Luna. She shrugged her shoulders and gave me a cute little smile before turning to Neville.

"What were you up to this evening?" She asked him, causing him to stop laughing and hem and haw for a second. "Well, you see, I was, um, in Herbology, giving someone a, uh, tutoring lesson, thing… yeah." He said, stuttering and blushing. This must've returned Ron's courage because he took to ribbing Neville.

"Yeah, I bet you had a great time _tutoring._ Did you manage to teach Susan anything _new and exciting?"_ He joked, elbowing the poor boy- who was now blushing profusely- as he stressed the words. "Oh, Susan, 'ey? Go get her tiger!" Harry joined in, laughing with Ron. "Oh, give him a break! You and Luna were no different Ron!" I said, causing Ron to begin blushing.

This same type of playful conversation continued through dinner and all the way through our walk back up to the common room.


End file.
